Subscribers are entitled, at any time,
to inform Haaretz-IHT of their desire to cancel their subscription by leaving a clear telephone message on 03-5121750 , or by sending written notification (hereinafter: the cancellation notice) by fax (to 03-5121703), by registered mail (to Subscription Department, 18 Salman Schocken Street, PO Box 35029, Tel Aviv, Israel 61350), by opening a customer service request or by email (to nyti@haaretz.co.il).

The cancellation notice must include the subscriber's full name and I.D. number.

IDF troops on the Syrian front on the second day of the war.
Dan Hadany / IPPA

Trove of Rare, Nostalgic Yom Kippur War Photos to Be Made Available to the Public

The IPPA archive, which is being transferred to the national library, contains a million photos. Its Yom Kippur War collection includes photos of both top brass and regular soldiers from both fronts of the war.

The founder of the Israel Press and Photo Agency is transferring a massive trove of nostalgic photographs dating back to the 1960's to the National Library, which put part of the collection on display on Monday for the media.

At Haaretz's request the exhibition included photographs from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in honor of the eve of the annual Jewish Day of Atonement, which also marks 43 years since that war broke out.

Rehavam Zeevi, Moshe Dayan and Shmuel Gonen on the second day of the Yom Kippur War, from the IPPA archive.Shlomo AradA mobile IDF bridge on the Egyptian side of the Suez Canal.Eitan Haber / IPPA

The photographs on display showed senior army officers and other leaders, as well as ordinary military men, with tanks and armored personnel carriers in action at the time.

For decades the photographs had been stored at the home of the agency’s founder, Dan Hadani, who, now 93, has decided that the time has come to make the archive more accessible to the public. He has begun transferring the collection to the National Library in Jerusalem, and in the coming months, the library plans to make them available on its website.

Why now?

“You’ve guessed correctly,” Hadani said in a phone interview with Haaretz from his home in the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim. “It’s because of my age.”

Performers trying to entertain troops after a battle with the Egyptian army. Dan Hadany / IPPA

Hadani declined to say whether the photographs had been sold to the library or were a donation. The library wouldn't comment, either.

The IPPA archive contains a million photos. The Yom Kippur War collection includes pictures of onetime Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and other senior military leaders as well as soldiers who fought in the Golan Heights, tanks that rolled along the Suez Canal, entertainment troupes, and the evacuation of the wounded.

Between 1965 and 2000, IPPA provided news photographs to press outlets in Israel and abroad, including Haaretz.

Hadani, a Holocaust survivor and career soldier, established IPPA immediately after his discharge from the Israel Defense Forces.

The collection impressively documents the country’s modern history and Israeli society and culture in the second half of the 20th century, from the period prior to the 1967 Six-Day War through the Second Intifada, which erupted in 2000. It covers the wars, peace agreements, terrorist attacks, demonstrations and political changes of these eras.

“Thanks to the quality and richness of the collection, we have a broad and wonderful range of events great and small in the country spread before us, various people from the fields of politics, society and culture, major events and obscure ones, social sectors from the center of society and from the margins, all accorded visual representation on a high level,” said Dr. Hezi Amiur, the library's curator.

Until now most of the library's photos covered earlier periods of the country's history, from the mid-19th century through the British Mandate period.

Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.